HL Deb 04 August 1898 vol 64 cc9-17
LORD BELPER

My Lords, I beg to move the Third Reading of this Bill.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

My Lords, there is an Amendment standing in my name on the Paper, to the following effect— To move that the Bill be re-committed, with a view to its operation being restricted to persons who have been convicted of crime. Now, my Lords, in moving this, I know I am attempting a very quixotic thing. This Bill was brought in in the House of Commons; it passed there almost without criticism; indeed, the tendency of those who spoke with regard to the Bill was to induce, if possible, the Government, represented by the Home Secretary, to go even further than was originally intended in the Bill. Since the Bill came up to your Lordships' House I do not think there have been any hostile criticisms upon it; and, therefore, as I say, to ask your Lordships to pass this Amendment is a most quixotic proceeding on my part. But, my Lords, I feel very strongly with regard to this Bill, and on this ground. No doubt the people who are endeavouring to get legislation to make all the world as good as themselves, are influenced by the very best motives, and I have no doubt the Home Secretary and the Government have the same object in view, but the fact remains that this Bill makes a crime of what is not at present a crime. It creates a crime. You have now the Habitual Drunkards Act, under which a man may, by his own voluntary act, shut himself up for three years in one of the reformatory asylums. But, if this Bill becomes law, what is at the present time voluntary will be made compulsory, and a man for being drunk under certain circumstances, which I will refer to presently, may be compulsorily shut up for three years. That is a very novel principle, and runs counter to the love of liberty which is innate in us all. The Bill also shows what progress in legislation means. A Bill which is one year voluntary, the next year becomes compulsory, and so we go on, and shall go on, until we all become slaves under the shackles of the State, or of some municipal authority, deprived of all liberty. Now, my Lords, what are the "crimes" for which, under this Bill, a man may be shut up? The Bill has two parts. The first part deals with men who are convicted of crime. It is the second clause of the Bill which makes drunkenness a crime, and the First Schedule states what is to be considered as a crime under this new legislation. I begin with the first. It is a crime, or will be a crime, punishable by three years' imprisonment in a reformatory, to be found drunk in a highway or other public place, whether a building or not, or on licensed premises. It will be a crime to be found drunk whilst in charge, on any highway or other public place, of any carriage, horse, cattle, or steam-engine; and it will be a crime to refuse or fail, when drunk, to quit licensed premises when requested. I should have thought those who held these licensed premises could have turned these men out without an Act of this kind, or call in the police. It will be a crime to be found intoxicated while driving a hackney carriage, or drunk and persisting, after being refused admission on that account, in attempting to enter a passenger steamer. Good heavens! my Lords, I should have thought those who had charge of passenger steamers could deal with these men. Surely this is carrying legislation too far! Under this Bill, being drunk on board a passenger steamer and refusing to leave such steamer when requested will also be a crime, as also will being found in a state of intoxication and incapable of taking care of one's self, and not under the care or protection of some suitable person, in any street, thoroughfare, or public place, and being found in any shebeen drunk. Now, my Lords, I venture to think this is not the sort of legislation that is desirable. It is not desirable to create lime, and the offences which I have mentioned ought not to be considered as crimes We all know that the noble Marquess the Prime Minister has a great love of liberty. In 1895, or 1896, the noble Marquess, in replying to a temperance body which waited upon him, used most excellent language, which I shall not bother your Lordships by quoting, but the substance was this: the noblest idol that man could adore was the idol of liberty.

THE PREMIER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)

I never said that.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

That is what the noble Marquess said. He may shake his head now, because it is unsuited to this Bill. My Lords, I want to ask my noble Friend whether he thinks that by converting persons guilty of the offences which I have referred to into criminals the Home Secretary has offered up a suitable offering to the idol which the Prime Minister so much admires. I do not think my noble Friend could say that this is a suitable offering to the idol of liberty. The great evil of drunkenness is drunkenness in the home, but the men who sit sopping and drinking at home, to the injury of their wives and families, are absolutely untouched by this Bill. But we may expect, when this Bill is passed, that there will be another one brought in for the purpose of preventing drunkenness at home, and then you will have inspectors going round to see whether there are any drunkards in people's homes. The Bill is imperfect without that, and depend upon it, when this Bill is passed, there will be people who will do their best to force that upon the Government. As regards myself, no one hates drunkenness more than I do. I loath and detest a drunkard, but I think these offences ought to be made, not crimes, but nuisances. I go this length and say that, if a man comes staggering along the street and knocks against people as he goes along, he ought to be taken up. One of our present Scotch judges told me a story of a man—a Scotchman—who knocked up against a gentleman in the street. The man so butted against said, "Bless you, what do you want?" "Want!" replied the Scotchman, "I dinna want naething; I'm as, fu' as fu' can be." I say that a man of that character is a real nuisance, and he ought to be shut up and dealt with by the police. I am one of those who think that the less legislation we have the better, and that it is by moral influence that men and nations improve and progress. Look at the change in the customs and habits of the upper classes in reference to drunkenness! During this winter, in the West End, I make bold to say that I have only seen one drunken man, and he was lying with his head on the pavement and his feet in the gutter in Berkeley Square. A man of that kind ought to be taken up by the police. I looked for a policeman to do it, but there was not one in sight or hearing. My conscience compels me to make this protest against this evil legislation, and I appeal to my noble Friend the Prime Minister to do something if he can, to protect his idol from the insulting gift which his Home Secretary is laying at its shrine.

THE PREMIER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

My idol is not the habitual drunkard.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

I would further remind the noble Marquess that in the year 1895, when he was in opposition, and when the present Lord Chancellor was in opposition, the then Lord Chancellor brought in a similar Bill, which my noble Friend opposed.

THE PREMIER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The noble Earl is entirely in error. The Bill to which he refers enabled persons to be shut up who had never been convicted at all of anything.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

Then I am very glad my noble Friend opposed that Bill, and I hope he will go one step better and oppose his own Bill. I have not the slightest hope of carrying my Amendment; it is impossible at this time of the Session that such a subject should be properly discussed, but I shall, if I am alive, bring in a Bill in the next Session of Parliament to do what my Amendment now proposes—namely, to restrict the operation of this Bill to persons who have been convicted of crime.

LORD BELPER

I regret that my noble Friend was not in his place on the Second Reading of this Bill, when the principle of that Bill should have been discussed. As far as I am able to follow the remarks of the noble Earl, they are all directed against the principle of the Bill.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

Only against the non-criminal part.

LORD BELPER

It is quite true that the Amendment of my noble Friend does not take the same line as his remarks. He moved that the Bill be re-committed, with a view to its operation being restricted to persons who have been convicted of crime. There is nobody dealt with by this Bill who has not been convicted of crime in some degree. It is true that some are convicted of a less crime than others. The first clause of the Bill deals with indictments for serious offences, and the second with offences of drunkenness.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

You make the latter a crime.

LORD BELPER

They are criminals whether they are in prison a fortnight or sis months. I understand that my noble Friend wishes to exclude from the operation of the Bill habitual drunkards who have not been convicted of serious crime. That would strike a very great blow at the Bill, because I find from the returns of habitual drunkards, which are issued by the police, that out of 23,000 cases classed by the police as habitual drunkards, only 261 of them were convicted on indictment, and therefore his Amendment would have the effect of ruling out the very large proportion of these cases. The Amendment which the noble Earl proposes is really that we should leave the law in its present unsatisfactory state with regard to that class of people. My noble Friend said this was a question which had been brought forward by faddists and people of that sort, but the fact is there have been three Committees lately, and other Committees before, who have come to the same conclusion and made a similar recommendation; and in the last Report of the Committee on Inebriates it is stated that the repeated infliction of short sentences for ordinary drunkenness has been universally condemned as unsuitable as a means of reform and cure. In the first place, the people dealt with by this Bill must be habitual drunkards, and must have been convicted three times before, in the course of the 12 months, of a similar offence. They are, as I ventured to point out in the remarks I made on the Second Reading, many of them people who have been repeatedly convicted of such offences, and who have spent a very large portion of each year in prison. I find that in one London prison alone there were 105 women who had been convicted from 40 to 133 times in the course of a single year. Therefore even on the narrow view that it would be better that these people ought not——

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

The broad view.

LORD BELPER

It is not a broad view at all, but on that view alone probably these people would be much better off by having to go through some course of retirement, under regulations, by which they could be weaned from the unhappy state into which they have got, and be prevented from undergoing, year after year, repeated bouts of drunkenness and repeated terms of imprisonment. The proposal which the noble Earl has made is that this Bill should be recommitted. I sincerely hope that the House will not take this view, but that they will endorse what has been the opinion, not only of the Committees who have sat upon the question, but of the experts with regard to this sort of disease. The most experienced magistrates all agree that it would be better to substitute for the present system some long term of incarceration with such a treatment as is likely to effect a cure. My Lords, I know that this is a new proposal. It is really only following the course of the proposals under which the reformatories were established, where those of tender years have been shut up, in order to wean them from the evil course of life in which they had started. I will go further. Where any class of people are in such a state that they are incapable, and are not likely to be a danger to those about them, such as those who are dealt with under the lunacy laws, treatment is prescribed by Parliament; and I venture to think the difference between some of those who come under this Bill and those who come under the Lunacy Acts is not so great as some noble Lords would suppose. I find that in one union—St. Pancras—there were 230 persons admitted in 1897 to the insane wards who were suffering from alcoholic excesses, and in whose cases alcohol was the sole cause of the mental disturbance. Therefore I venture to think there is some necessity for an amendment of the law in the direction proposed. The noble Earl waxed very eloquent upon the "liberty of the subject." I venture to think that some consideration should be shown for the sober and law-abiding citizen, whose liberty is continually being interfered with by these people, because in each of these oases we have not only drunkenness, but disorder, assaults, and the various other offences which are committed by these people when they are drunk. My Lords, I hope your Lordships' House will take this view of the question and give a Second Reading to the Bill, which, as I have said, is founded upon the recommendations of those most qualified to form an opinion on the subject. It has passed through the other House with very general approval, and not a single objection was raised to it in this House until this stage of the Bill. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY)

My Lords, I am unwilling that this Bill should pass without saying a word or two in reply to the observations of the noble Earl who moved the Amendment. I am not quite certain that I heard all the objections raised by the noble Earl, but I did hear an allusion to an opposition we offered to a Bill on the same subject which was introduced by the late Government. I took an active part in opposing that Bill. I heartily sympathise with the noble Earl in his desire to protect the liberty of the subject, but I cannot help thinking that he has moved this Amendment under some misapprehension as to what this Bill provides. An essential condition of the Bill is that the persons to whom it applies must have been convicted of something three times within 12 months, and must be convicted upon indictment of being habitual drunkards. This Bill is a very different one to the Bill which was introduced by the late Government. The real provision of the Bill is one to protect the liberty of the subject, and to prevent the persons who are made the objects of the Bill being exposed to other legislation, which I suspect public indignation will ultimately insist upon being passed. This is an effort to meet the growing demand that drunkenness should be properly treated. I daresay the noble Earl remembers the case of Mrs. Jane Cakebread, which was one of considerable importance in respect to this question. I forget the number of hundreds of times she was sent to prison, but it became a perfect scandal. The noble Earl would like that to go on, I suppose. When he asks that the Bill should be recommitted, what does the noble Earl propose to substitute for clause 2?

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

Strike it out altogether. Leave things as they are.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I do not believe the conscience of this country will allow a system to go on under which you can have 350 convictions, which, I believe, was the number of convictions in the case of Jane Cakebread. The object of this Bill is to meet what is felt to be a very great want—namely, that there is no provision for habitual drunkards other than sending them to a house of correction. The proposal is to send them to homes where they can be properly looked after, and where that which is more or less a sort of disease may be treated with some hope of a cure being effected. This Bill is a very different one from that which I for one steadily opposed on a former occasion. That Bill did, I think, strike very seriously at the liberty of the subject, but this Bill only strikes at the liberty of those persons who have proved, by their action, that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. I hope your Lordships will reject the Amendment of the noble Earl.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

I withdraw my Amendment now, but I shall, as I said, give your Lordships an opportunity of discussing this question next year.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put.

Bill read a third time.

Amendment proposed— Page 2, line 26, leave out '1893,' and insert '1898.'"—(Lord Belper.)

Question put.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— Page 7, line 24, leave out '1893,' and insert '1898.'"—(Lord Belper.)

Question put.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— Page 8. line 24, leave out '1893, and insert '1898.'"—(Lord Helper.)

Question put.

Amendment agreed to.

Lord BELPER

I now move that this Bill do pass.

Question put.

Motion agreed to.